Hidden Ontario (8 page)

Today, Cobalt no longer represents the mining boom of 1903. Gone are the surplus of hotels and the prospectors who filled them. What remains is a small historic community struggling to survive the changing times.

 

Samuel Ash of New York State arrived at Kingston in 1797, after travelling across Lake Ontario in an open boat with his father and his brother-in-law. Their first purchase was two oxen, and then they headed west where they heard there was land. They found 200 acres that took their fancy and settled in to clear it. Low, wet, and somewhat swampy, with great meandering creeks that wound their way to Lake Ontario, this terrain would be transformed by visionaries and dreamers into a town called Cobourg.

Among the many privations from which the settlers suffered, one of the greatest was the lack of footwear. Mr. Ash would tell in later years how he sometimes came home from work in the evening to find his wife absent. He would know that she had gone in search of the cows, which were in the habit of straying into the woods. He would then set out to look for her, in the knowledge that he could find her by tracing the marks of her bleeding feet on the stones and brush as she went along.

Eluid Nickerson came next. The following year, 1798, he built a log home near the present-day King and Division business section of town. Elijah Buck arrived in 1808 and he, too, accumulated a large tract of land and promptly opened a tavern. The settlement became known as Buckville until the name was changed to Amherst, and then to Hamilton, after the township in which it was situated. In 1819 the village was renamed Cobourg in honour of the marriage of Princess Charlotte to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, Germany. The extra
o
crept in, presumably through ignorance of the correct spelling.

In 1827 Cobourg had about 40 houses, two inns, four stores, several distilleries, a gristmill, and a population of 350. There was still no harbour, but plans for one were underway and there was talk of a railway from Cobourg to Rice Lake and Peterborough.

The 1830s saw the beginning of a massive wave of immigrants. Cobourg had its new harbour by then, and it offered both rich and poor the opportunity to settle. By 1847, 5,393 immigrants had landed here. The citizens of Cobourg felt that their community was destined to be a city of greatness one day. The harbour and proposed railway to Peterborough were expected to bring great prosperity. Cobourg's residents even hired a noted Toronto architect, Kivas Tully, to design a town hall.

Excavation and construction of the town hall was underway by 1856. Three years later Victoria Hall was almost completed. The local newspaper, the
Star
, described the interior of the building by stating, “As you enter, a spacious outer court presents itself to the chastely decorated Hall of Justice, the south wall of which has been tastefully painted with the Royal Arms in the centre, without color, and as though the whole were a piece of sculpture. The whole of the woodwork has been painted and grained in a superior manner under the superintendence of Mr. Hayden, who took the contract for painting the hall. Carpets have been laid down and stoves erected in the rooms required for use at the assizes ... Too much praise cannot be given to all parties.” On September 7, 1860, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) arrived by boat at 9:30 p.m. and officially opened Victoria Hall.

The townspeople, fired with zeal to expand, obtained a charter to build a railway from Cobourg to Peterborough. On February 9, 1853, the first sod was turned near the corner of University Avenue and Railroad Street.

In the past, officials had considered a number of schemes to connect their town and Rice Lake, and, more particularly, Peterborough. In 1846 they had attempted to build a plank road to Gore's Landing, Rice Lake, but in only a few years the planks had split and rotted. The only solution, it seemed, was a railway.

The three-mile gap across Rice Lake would be spanned by a trestle. With dynamic enterprise the people of Cobourg voted to tax themselves to bring this railway into being. Peterborough offered no capital but plenty of encouragement.

The 15-mile line to Harwood on Rice Lake was completed by May, 1854. Meanwhile, a piling-machine had been pounding massive beams, for the trestle, into the muddy bottom of Rice Lake. On December 8th the first work-train arrived in Ashburnham, on the east side of the Otonabee River, opposite Peterborough.

The railway was a tremendous boon to the millers, merchants, and manufacturers of Peterborough. Cobourg's exports rose dramatically, and Harwood came to life as the main sawmill and shipping centre on Rice Lake.

There was, however, one significant problem: the impressive trestle bridge rested on shaky foundations and was soon no match for the winter ice on the lake. The ice pressure was quite capable of snapping a two-foot square beam in half. During the winter of 1854–55, the ice shoved some of the tresses, twisted the rails out of shape, and opened a two-metre (seven foot) gap at the Harwood end. Again and again, the bridge was closed for repairs. Any money the railway earned was soon spent on repairs to the teetering trestle bridge.

The bridge actually became quite an embarrassment when the Prince of Wales and his royal party, en route from Cobourg to Peterborough, in September 1860, had to be transferred from the train at Rice Lake to the steamer
Otonabee
for the lake crossing. Officials feared for the life of the prince if he were to cross the bridge by train. The train crept slowly across the rickety bridge, and the prince re-boarded on the other side. By the spring of 1862, the bridge finally collapsed and floated away with the ice. The demise of the bridge meant the demise of the entire Cobourg Railway.

In the early 1860s, Cobourg may have appeared to be a prosperous town, waiting to become a city, but the truth of the situation was far from its appearance. The local paper made continual reference to the hard times that had fallen on the town. The Cobourg and Peterborough Railway had cost a million dollars, yet it failed to pay running expenses. On May 13, 1864, Henry Hough wrote in the the
Cobourg World
, “It seems, as far as we can learn, to be generally admitted fact that Cobourg, as a business and commercial town, has gone down. There was a time when it took a front rank among the towns of the country; when business was brisk and plentiful; when the streets were thronged with bustling people, and the workshops with industrious and contented workmen.” The citizens continued to pay for their town until 1938.

The Commercial House, on the main street of Cobourg, in the 1870s.

Archives of Ontario

In the 1870s Cobourg experienced the arrival of many Americans who were anxious to spend their summers by the lake. One American observed, on beholding the town hall, “That is indeed a splendid building, but where is the town for whose use it was built?”

At one time it was stated that every admiral in the American Navy had passed at least one holiday season in Cobourg. Society among them was very cultured and refined. Later on, a wealthier class of Americans, principally steel capitalists from Pittsburgh, arrived to make Cobourg their summer home. Some of these new arrivals purchased and enlarged stately old residences, while others erected palatial homes after the style of Newport, Maine.

General Charles Fitzhugh was one of the wealthy Americans who built a summer home in Cobourg. He was born in Oswego, New York, in 1838 and later entered West Point Academy. When the young men of the nation were called to war, Charles Fitzhugh at once gave his services to his country and, after being in action a short while, received a commission as first lieutenant. Promotion followed quickly in the field, and he soon became the youngest general in the northern army during the American Civil War.

This spacious mansion, entitled Strathmore and built in the 1870s, suited the period of elegance and grace created by the American summer homes in Cobourg.

Courtesy of Rob Mickel

He married Emma Shoenberger in 1865 and resigned from the army two years later. In 1900 he built Ravensworth, a stunning summer home on the shore of Lake Ontario. In keeping with the colonial appearance, the grounds were laid out in a graceful manner, with elegant gardens, immaculately groomed. Ravensworth was to become the scene of great family gatherings and marvelous social events for high, summer society. The architectural formality of the house complemented the lavish dinner parties, and the social rules were made palatable by the sweeping curves of gowns, the softly curled hair, the light laughter, and long gold cigarette holders. People flowed from one room to the other. Music and dancing continued until dawn, with crystal chandeliers glittering in the rays of the early morning sun.

Both the general and his wife died in 1923, and their summer home was sold to Richard Baylor Hickman of Kentucky. Soon after, Ravensworth became the scene of an attempted assassination. One evening Hickman was sitting in his library, quietly reading a book, when a bullet whistled through the air and lodged itself into the wall paneling three inches above his head. Hickman raced out of the house to search the grounds but was unable to find the culprit. He retired for the night, with the intention of notifying the police in the morning. Sometime during the night, the would-be assassin returned, entered the library, and removed the bullet from the wall. Neither bullet nor man were ever found.

Today, Ravensworth is a private residence and remains virtually unchanged. Still a splendid house, it is a reminder of a bygone era of ease and elegance.

Cobourg, over the years, has been home to several famous people. The first mayor, William Weller, established the widely known Weller Stage Line, operated from Montreal and Hamilton. Ulysses S. Grant, 18th president of the United States, spent his summers at Cobourg; Marie Dressler, a movie star perhaps best-known as Tugboat Annie, was born here. Others who once lived in Cobourg and went on to find fame elsewhere were James Cockburn, one of the Fathers of Confederation; Beatrice Lillie and Katharine Cornell, both famous actresses; and Paul Kane, the world-famous artist.

Cobourg may never have become a city, but the image of prosperity exemplified by Victoria Hall and other beautiful and unique period homes still remains. Thanks to those who persevered — the first settlers when they traced bleeding feet and lived in swampy land — we are able to enjoy the beauty carved out of this Ontario wilderness.

 

Francis Cochrane was the Ontario minister of lands, forests, and mines in the early 1900s. The townsite at the terminal point for the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway was named in his honour.

The townsite itself was not laid out until 1907; prior to that, the area had been touched only by Natives, trappers, and the natural kingdom. In November 1907 a public sale of lots was held for prospective settlers. The lots measured 20 by 36 metres (66 by 120 feet), surrounded by 17 avenues 30 metres (100 feet) wide, running north and south, and narrower ones running east and west.

As you can well imagine, there were no long lineups to purchase these lots, as they were quite small for the standards of the time. The plans changed somewhat when lots were not properly cleared, and those not sold at the auction were allowed to keep their blankets of virgin forest. The close proximity of lots meant homes were built so close together that fire was a major threat to the community. As a matter of fact, Cochrane suffered a rash of fires in a span of six years.

A few months after its incorporation in 1910, Cochrane's core was destroyed in a burning blaze and promptly rebuilt. Later, in July 1911, at the height of the Porcupine gold rush, gale-force winds turned scattered bush fires into one massive firestorm that devastated several towns and mining camps in the area, including Cochrane and Timmins. The 3,000 residents of Cochrane rebuilt their town, hoping to never see the likes of such a fire again. Hopes aside, tragedy struck again, in July 1916. They called it “The Great Fire of 1916.” High winds once again turned separate fires, which were already burning in the tinder-dry woods along the railway lines, into one vast conflagration that scorched 500,000 acres. Numerous settlements, including Matheson and Cochrane, were affected, and many lives were lost.